


The Air is Only Gold in Autumn

by letmetellyouaboutmyfeels



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-21
Updated: 2020-04-20
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:42:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23241151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/letmetellyouaboutmyfeels/pseuds/letmetellyouaboutmyfeels
Summary: A home for prompts originally posted on my blog.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 80
Kudos: 465





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted here: https://letmetellyouaboutmyfeels.tumblr.com/post/613081257028550656/its-far-from-september-but-is-that-prompt-list

“I’ll see you in autumn,” Jaskier had said. “I’ll see you when the leaves turn.”

That was how it went. Autumn was their time. Spring was when all the monsters that went into hibernation woke up and wreaked havoc, starving, and spring was when all the nobles had coming out parties for their children and royal courts had banquets again. Summer was breeding season, and then, later, the season to take Ciri to Yennefer, and all the courts had weddings. And winter was time to hunker down, in Oxenfurt or a royal court, teaching or playing, while Geralt took Ciri to Kaer Morhen and trained her in Witcher ways.

But autumn was when he traveled with Jaskier.

Not that he didn’t often see the bard at other times. But it was more of a meeting, it wasn’t being together, traveling properly. Autumn was when the air grew a bit cooler and Jaskier walked the road talking about “returning to his humble roots” and seeing “how the common folk were doing” so that he could get “real inspiration” again.

_I’ll see you when the leaves turn._

Now it is autumn, and there is no sign of Jaskier.

Courts have seen him, but not in weeks. His students and fellow professors at Oxenfurt aren’t expecting him until the snowfall is heavy and constant.

He tries every haunt that he can think of. Jaskier’s never failed to keep a promise before. _I’ll see you in autumn._ Every autumn, without fail, they find each other. Jaskier makes his presence loud and unavoidable, all but shouts his location from the rooftops, and Geralt finds him. Or, sometimes, Jaskier finds him, following the trail of monster guts and rumors. But they find each other, and this year…

This year Jaskier is nowhere. Like a ghost.

At last, he goes to Yennefer.

“Find him.” He doesn’t care if he’d begging. Jaskier would never disappear like this. Jaskier keeps his promises. _I’ll see you when the leaves turn._ “Find him.”

The leaves have turned, the air has chilled, autumn is nigh. Children are carving into pumpkins and making masks to hang from the eaves of their house, to scare away the fey that are said to walk the misty nights this time of year. And the air around him is silent, because there is no bard to fill it.

It takes Yennefer three days.

Her face, when she’s finished, makes Geralt’s blood cold. He’s never ridden Roach so hard before, never felt fear like this. He rides until he reaches what feels like the end of the world, cuts a swath of blood like he hasn’t dared since Blaviken, the fear beating through his veins like the hot poison of his potions.

Yennefer will always take care of herself, and he would feel it if she was in trouble. He would feel if it was Ciri. But he isn’t bound to Jaskier by destiny, he can’t _feel_ him, and so Jaskier was hurt, he was taken, and Geralt didn’t know, Geralt didn’t stop it, and if he loses him–

_I was supposed to see him in autumn._

Triss is a better healer than Yennefer. Yennefer is fire and storm and lightning. Yennefer is chaos. Triss is plants, and light, and soft, warm blankets. Triss is life.

Geralt watches as she works, smooths her hands over Jaskier’s chest, his forehead, the eyes pressed closed in magical sleep.

“He might not remember you,” Triss admits. “He might not remember anything.”

“Why. How.”

“Sometimes when you try and force a lock open, you end up destroying the whole door.”

She doesn’t say it was because of him. The White Wolf. She doesn’t say they wanted Jaskier to get to Geralt. After all, Jaskier’s pissed off plenty of husbands over the years (and wives, and siblings, and parents, and lovers, and…) but Geralt just—he _knows._ He is the Witcher. He is bound to the most powerful sorceress in the land and is friends with half a dozen more. His daughter is the Lion Cub of Cintra. They tried to get into Jaskier’s mind, tried to use him to find Geralt.

And Jaskier—stubborn, spiteful, vibrant, defiant Jaskier—decided to be broken instead of bending.

Triss forces some food on him. Gently drags him into the bath. Washes his clothes. “If you stink like death and look like a skeleton when he wakes, he’ll be very angry with you.”

“I thought you said he might not know me.”

“Then you’d better make a good first impression.”

Days slide by. Yennefer brings Ciri, the two of them stepping through a portal. They only stay a day, but Ciri braids his hair and Yennefer promises to stop by Aretuza, see if there’s anything in the library there that will help. Ciri sings a couple of Jaskier’s lullabies, the ones he wrote for her to help with her nightmares, and Geralt leaves the room, stands outside the door, because he can’t look at Jaskier’s still and silent form while listening to his songs.

The leaves will be all gone soon. Withered and brown, crushed underfoot. The air will bring frost.

On the seventh day, Jaskier’s eyes open.

Triss is absent, gathering herbs. Ciri and Yen have gone. It’s just him in the room.

He wants to take Jaskier’s hand—wants to press it tight between two of his—but he can’t forget her words. _He might not remember you._

Jaskier’s eyes are so very warm, warm as summer even when summer has long since faded. “Where am I?”

His voice is hoarse from lack of use. Geralt fetches him some water and helps him to sit up. “A safe place.” He doesn’t know how much to tell him.

“You might want to give me more detail than that. I’m afraid I can’t remember much.”

Geralt’s had monsters sink their claws into his chest, had one nearly rip out his eye, and none of it hurt like this. “I’ll fetch the healer. She’ll explain.”

He stands and starts to go, but gets barely halfway to the door before Jaskier says, “Geralt?”

He turns back. Jaskier’s looking at him with confusion on his face. “Where are you going? Stay.”

It’s only when he has Jaskier’s hand in his that he realizes he’s crossed back to the bed. “You know me.”

“Of course I know you. I might not remember the last few months but I know you.” Jaskier sounds amused, and puzzled, and terribly fond. “I’d know you in death.” His free hand reaches up, thumb tracing the scar beneath Geralt’s eye. His voice is soft as falling leaves. “At the end of the world.”

Geralt kisses him. It is autumn, and he has Jaskier.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted here: https://letmetellyouaboutmyfeels.tumblr.com/post/613142489232293888/could-i-get-4-or-6-geraskier-for-the-september

Jaskier has never been acquainted with the tragedy of love.

Oh, he’s dealt with the ache of pining, the bittersweet tang of a love affair ended, the cold ache in his chest upon seeing someone that years ago meant everything and now means nothing. But those are bruises, not broken bones. Scrapes, not stab wounds.

It helps that he’s a butterfly when it comes to love. A summer flower, not a hardy pine tree. He trips and falls into love like a blind man on an uneven set of stairs. People are fascinating and wonderful and he loves to soak up their personalities, their idiosyncrasies, the thousands of tiny angles of glass that make up the kaleidoscope of _them._

But then he falls hard enough to break his neck. For a man with hair like snow and a heart just as prone to melting (and just as silent and stealthy about it), a man with eyes that glow, just a little, in the moonlight and when he’s happy (but you have to learn how to watch for it), a man with over a hundred scars and each one of them a story.

And that man dies.

Jaskier knows the first face of love. He knows happiness and yearning and warmth. He knows the rumble against his chest when he’s lying on top of Geralt and the Witcher growls (or purrs, when he thinks Jaskier’s asleep and doesn’t notice). He knows the exact timber of words whispered in his ear. He knows every line and curve of Geralt’s hands, hands he’s bandaged and kissed and held, and he knows the man’s mouth just as well, perhaps even more so.

But doorways go both in and out, enter and exit, and love has a second face.

He’s in Oxenfurt when it happens, doing some lecturing, and overhears some students gossiping. They try and fall silent when they see Jaskier, but Jaskier’s not _stupid._ Dumb, maybe, but he’s not an idiot.

“Torn apart,” one whispers. “By a mob.”

“Seems a stupid way for a Witcher to die.”

“What was the reason?”

“I heard he was protecting someone.”

“Who?”

The students trying, in their own way, to protect their beloved professor (Jaskier’s their favorite, which he knows rankles on the other faculty) is sweet but it doesn’t do much. By nightfall the whole town’s talking about it, repeating the same refrain, like an awful, tuneless song.

_The White Wolf is dead. The White Wolf is dead. The White Wolf is dead._

Jaskier feels sick.

He’s also a masochist, so he gets a horse and rides, stopping only when he has to, until he reaches the village where it happened.

Gods, he wants to burn it all down. He wants to take the destruction that’s in his heart, the devastation that he stares at every day in the mirror, and turn it outward. He wants them to feel even half of the sick, pulsing grief that pumps through his veins like a disease.

But Geralt spent his entire life trying not to be the monster that everyone said he was. He spent all his life taking his emotions and hiding them deep in the cavern of his chest, where few people could reach them or even knew they were there. The least that Jaskier can do is try to honor that.

He dismounts and walks through. Wonders which of these people participated. Wonders if they truly believed in what they were doing or if they were caught up in the hysteria of it. Wonders… wonders if Geralt suffered for long.

Melitele help him, he’s never felt so _empty_ inside. He is well acquainted with love’s tragedies, now, and he does not want them. He wants to die himself. He ought to have died, himself. Geralt was the one who was supposed to go on. Not Jaskier.

A girl tugs at the sleeve of his doublet. “I like your necklace.”

It’s one Geralt gave to him. Gold and silver mixed. A wreath of flowers around the head of a wolf. Jaskier knows, although Geralt never told him, that the poor man must’ve spent weeks, perhaps even months, working up the courage to gift it.

“Thank you.” He swallows down the other, bitter things he wants to say. She’s a child. It’s not her fault, what happened.

“I have one just like it.” The girl tugs on his sleeve again. “May I show you?”

Jaskier’s heart stops.

That’s their code. That’s _their_ code, the one that no one else could possibly know. Geralt gave that necklace with a threefold purpose: the first, a declaration. The second, protection (the necklace is so loaded with magic that Yennefer sneezed when she inspected it). The third, so that if Geralt were injured, whoever was caring for him would recognize Jaskier and bring him to Geralt.

But Geralt, Geralt is dead.

The girl pouts, stubborn. “Please?”

He might be going to his grave, but if it is a grave, at least it will be a double one. Jaskier follows her.

They leave town, go up a thin winding path, the kind that women picking herbs and children playing games use, and no one else. Then there is no path at all, and Jaskier is obliged to leave his horse behind, following the girl down an embankment to a cave.

“My father’s a shepherd,” the girl says. “He uses this to shelter the herd if they’re caught out here in a storm.” Then she raises her voice. “Sir Wolf! Sir Wolf! He’s here!”

The cave is dark and cold, but there is a small, poorly executed fire, such as one a child might make, and the remains of cheese and bread, and there, wrapped in his cloak…

This, Jaskier thinks. This is devastation. Seeing your lover and the dried blood on him and the bruises and feeling your heart rip and rip and _rip_ like rotted teeth are digging into it.

“My mother’s a healer,” the girl says, proudly. “I’ve been healing him.”

Yes, rather poorly, but it’s the thought that counts. Jaskier is going to shower this child with so many gifts she won’t know what to do with them. He’s going to write her entire sonnets. “We’re in your debt.”

He crosses to Geralt, and he knows he needs to start making proper bandages, getting out the salve, washing away the blood and dirt, but first, first…

Geralt’s eyes crack open as Jaskier kneels before him, taking the Witcher’s face in his hands. “Jaskier.” He sounds relieved.

“I’m here.” He’s the bard, he’s the writer, he crafts the stories, and he dictates how they end. This will not end in tragedy. “You stupid darling, what have you gotten yourself into now?”

Geralt manages to give Jaskier a terribly unimpressed look, as if to say that Jaskier is the last one to be able to talk about getting oneself into messes. “Just tell me you brought the fucking chamomile.”

Jaskier’s own laugh startles him. It’s rusty, and weak, but it’s there. Geralt’s hands (hands he knows every line and curve of, hands he will heal and kiss and hold) fit weakly around Jaskier’s wrists, and when Jaskier kisses his mouth (a mouth he knows even better than his hands), he is warm and soft and real.

He has seen love’s other face, but as gardeners say, flowers bloom best after devastation.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted here: https://letmetellyouaboutmyfeels.tumblr.com/post/613172763478360064/hey-i-love-you-writing-and-just-binge-read-some-of

Jaskier wasn’t sure what to expect when he got Geralt’s hastily-scribbled note. _Come and help me. I am disappearing._

That, frankly, could’ve meant any number of things. But he was used to the odd nature of the Path by now, so he begged off the concert he was supposed to be performing that night, and headed for the woods just north of Novigrad.

He found Roach, all right, but no sign of Geralt.

“Hello, girl.” This Roach had a smaller star on her face than most of the others, and a gentler temperament. She happily accepted the apple that Jaskier gave her. All Roaches were suckers for apples. “Where’s Geralt, huh? Where is he, girl.”

Geralt’s things were all here, including his two swords. That wasn’t a good sign. But after half a century traveling with him, Jaskier knew how to look for signs of a struggle, and there were none of those, either. What had happened?

Perhaps Geralt was… bathing in a creek somewhere. Or checking snares. Jaskier settled down to wait.

It had been late afternoon when he’d found Roach and the campsite, but the moon was up in full by the time he heard someone (or something) returning to camp. The bushes rustled and Jaskier tightly gripped the dagger Geralt had gifted him with ten years ago, ready, alert for anything—

A large, white wolf padded into the campsite.

Jaskier’s breath caught. The wolf looked… well, he had golden eyes, to be sure, but there was no spark of life or recognition in them. He looked savage in a way that Geralt never did. He looked empty on the inside. Like an animal, not like the man that Jaskier loved.

He crouched down. The wolf growled. Jaskier glanced at the dagger in his hand. “Is this upsetting you?”

The wolf growled louder. Jaskier set the dagger down on the ground, even though he could hear Geralt in his head chastising him for leaving himself unarmed. Jaskier reached out, his palm down, hand limp. “Go on. You can sniff. Sniff me, you’ll remember. I know you will.”

The wolf glanced over at Roach hungrily, and that scared Jaskier more than anything else. Had Geralt come here because he knew to come back to his campsite? Or had he simply smelled horseflesh and seen the firelight and thought only of his next meal?

Jaskier made soft, cooing noises, clucking his tongue. “No, you’re not eating the horse. Look at me. Smell me, Geralt. Come on.” He stretched his hand out further.

For a moment, he thought the wolf might snap forward and bite his hand off. Jaskier was certain the creature could hear his heart beating wildly in his chest. But Geralt had never hurt him, not even while in the grip of his worst potions or while flailing with fever. Somewhere, somehow, Geralt was in there. In the wolf. And he wouldn’t hurt Jaskier.

The wolf’s lip curled, a snarl stuck in his throat—and then he seemed to finally catch a whiff of Jaskier’s scent.

He inched closer, nose first, sniffing delicately. It felt like an age until his muzzle bumped up against Jaskier’s knuckles. Jaskier’s legs trembled with the effort keeping himself still, keeping himself from burying his face in that soft fur.

The wolf licked at Jaskier’s fingers, and then he was launching himself at Jaskier, knocking the bard to the ground, snuffling all over Jaskier’s face and neck, trying to lick right into Jaskier’s mouth.

Jaskier laughed. “There you are, you big softie. I knew it was you in there somewhere.”

He petted through all that thick, luxurious white fur, wrapping his arms around Geralt’s neck. “You’re losing yourself, aren’t you? That’s what you meant. The wolf’s taking over, isn’t it?”

Geralt made a mournful sound, almost but not quite a howl. Jaskier rubbed one of those big, velvet soft ears. “Who did this to you? Who hurt you like this?” He’d rip the person from groin to crown for this. Geralt had to be terrified, trapped like this, unable to do anything except slip slowly into the animal he’d always fought so hard not to be.

Jaskier didn’t get an answer, just got Geralt settling more firmly on top of him and giving Jaskier his most mournful expression. “Oh, don’t look at me like that, you’ll break my heart.” Jaskier scratched behind Geralt’s ears, then took Geralt’s muzzle in his hand and solemnly kissed his nose. “We’ll set you to rights, don’t you worry.”

Almost instantly, Geralt began to shift and change. He let out a noise that was half howl, have hoarse scream. A horrible cracking noise—no, multiple cracking noises—filled the air. Jaskier scrambled back, bile rising in his throat as the wolf skin began to—to tear itself apart from the inside, blood and viscera everywhere like a gruesome parody of birth, limbs cracking and mutating, snapping this way and that, the scream of pain getting louder and louder—

Jaskier’s stomach heaved and he nearly threw up as Geralt terribly, horrifically, underwent transformation.

At last he lay on the blood-soaked ground, sweating, shaking, his body limp. Human again.

Jaskier crawled over to him, hauling Geralt’s head into his lap. “Geralt, Geralt, talk to me.” He brushed the blood-stiff hair out of Geralt’s face. “I’m here, I’m here, I’m here.”

Geralt reached up clumsily, taking Jaskier’s hand in his. “Couldn’t… remember you. Then I smelled… sweetgrass. Chamomile. You always smell like…”

“I know.” Geralt had told him many a time how Jaskier smelled to him. “Rest. It’s all right.”

Taking that as his cue, Geralt’s eyes rolled back into his head and he passed out.

It wasn’t until morning—after Jaskier had gotten him bathed and fed and watered—that Geralt was able to explain. “Pissed off a sorcerer. He cursed me to become a wolf. At first just at night, but then all day, and every time—I’d be less human. More wolf. Until…”

“Until you had disappeared.”

Geralt nodded. Jaskier listed to the side until he was resting his forehead on Geralt’s shoulder. Geralt kept staring into the woods, but his hand found Jaskier’s knee, squeezing it. “The curse could only be broken by…” Jaskier could taste the annoyance in Geralt’s tone. “…true love’s kiss.”

“Oh, and you just hated that, didn’t you?” Jaskier kissed Geralt’s jaw. “I bet he did that just to piss you off. So you summoned me right away.”

“Of course I did,” Geralt replied, sounding put off. As if he was offended at the notion that he might’ve thought of someone else.

“And of course I didn’t hesitate to kiss you immediately.” Jaskier felt he had a right to be smug. “You were an adorable wolf, you deserved many kisses.”

“I could have killed you.” Geralt’s hand tightened around Jaskier’s knee. “If you’d been—too late—I wouldn’t have known you even by smell. I would’ve attacked you.”

“But I wasn’t, and you did know me, and you didn’t hurt me.” Jaskier laid his head on Geralt’s shoulder again. “You wouldn’t ever.”

“Hmm.” Geralt didn’t sound convinced, but that was all right. Jaskier had fixed it, and that was all that mattered.

He might get a very good song out of this, actually. What had the note said? Ah, yes. _The wolf howls, oh, oh, oh, come help me… come help me, love, for I am disappearing…_ He could have some fun with the howling notes…

“Don’t,” Geralt growled. “Don’t you dare.” Like he could hear Jaskier’s thoughts.

After half a century together, maybe he could. Jaskier grinned. “Too late.”

_The wolf howls…_


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted on tumblr here: https://letmetellyouaboutmyfeels.tumblr.com/post/615896031846187008/p-37-p

Geralt lives in a world of self-denial.

It’s different from the worlds that Jaskier and Yennefer and many others he knows of inhabit. Jaskier and Yen live in worlds of decadence. Worlds of the finest, the most, the best.

But Witchers don’t get any of that. Vesemir has told him many a time: _expect the worst, and you’ll never be disappointed._ Witchers get their food and ale spat in at taverns before it’s served to them. They get the worst rooms at the inns. They get mud slung at them, get cursed at, get ignored and distrusted and shortchanged. Geralt camps more often than not for a reason.

_Expect the worst, and you’ll never be disappointed._

And then along comes this scamp. This wastrel. This idiot without the good sense to feel fear when he sees a man twice his breadth with glowing cat eyes and hair white like death. Jaskier sees Geralt and gives him the worst pickup line Geralt’s ever heard (and Geralt’s heard a _lot_ ). Jaskier makes up a song about him and turns the Continent upside-down changing their minds about Witchers. Jaskier shares his bed and his clothes and his shampoo with Geralt, as if Geralt is his friend, someone trusted, someone _valued_.

Geralt hardly knows what to do with himself.

So he pushes. He denies. Jaskier will leave eventually. Jaskier will grow scared of him in time. Jaskier will become bored. Any number of things will happen, and Jaskier will not be there, and so Geralt shoves the bard away so that he won’t feel that sharp thorn-prick in his heart.

Yet Jaskier stays.

Sometimes… sometimes, when they’re sharing a bed at yet another cramped inn, and Jaskier’s dead asleep, Geralt will press his nose into the bard’s hair. Jaskier keeps it impossibly soft, and Geralt would run his fingers through it if he didn’t think Jaskier would wake from the touch. Instead he just… inhales softly.

Underneath the perfumes and shampoos, Jaskier smells like summer.

And sometimes… sometimes when they’re on the road and he’s riding Roach, and Jaskier’s prancing along, making up nonsense lyrics, lyrics with _horrifically_ bad puns, lyrics that only Geralt hears because these are just first drafts, filled with curses and flat notes and sudden key changes… he’ll turn, and he’ll look at Jaskier, who has his eyes closed and a big, sunny smile on his face, and his heart will ache.

And very, very rarely, sometimes, when Geralt’s injured and in pain and they’re lying in front of the campfire, his wound all bandaged up, and he’s half-asleep and semi-delirious… Jaskier will sit next to him, and hum softly, and Geralt will fit his hand around Jaskier’s, and marvel at how their fingers interlock and how, despite the differences between monster hunting and barding, the calluses on the pads of them feel the same.

_Expect the worst, and you’ll never be disappointed._

But oh, it’s so hard, when Jaskier smells like summer and smiles so wide and his hands fit into Geralt’s. It’s so hard when Jaskier stays, and stays, and _stays._

The winter, after the dragon, after Ciri… he brings Jaskier to Kaer Morhen. It’s not safe anywhere else, he’s already nearly lost Yen and his Child Surprise both, and even if Jaskier hates him for the rest of his days, he refuses to come back in the spring to find the bard dead of the pox or a raiding refugee party or because he was at one of the courts to fall to Nilfgaard’s advancing army.

The other Witchers, inexplicably, take a liking to him. Even Lambert, although he pretends Jaskier annoys him. Ciri is delighted by him, and even Yennefer says he’s useful for trading barbs with when she’s bored, which is high praise coming from the still-healing sorceress.

“How did you manage to land such a shadow?” Vesemir asks him at one juncture.

Jaskier’s darting around, avoiding Lambert, who’s trying to yank the bard’s lute away from him so Jaskier will stop singing some ditty he made up about the Witcher. Eskel is laughing, and Ciri is too, and technically they’re supposed to be teaching their little princess swordplay but Geralt doesn’t have the heart to stop them, not when they’re all fucking _laughing_ for once.

“Trust me, I did everything I could to get rid of him.”

Vesemir looks… surprised? Disappointed? Geralt can’t parse out his expression. “Why?”

Geralt blinks. “I… He’d… He’d leave. So. I made him leave. Before. Before it hurt.”

“Geralt!” Jaskier says in that tone that clearly means _help I’m in trouble come save me,_ and then the bard’s darting behind Geralt like he’s a human shield.

“Lay off,” Geralt tells Lambert, who huffs and goes back to pick up his wooden sword, yelling at Ciri to attack him again _and watch your flank this time, girl._

“Ah, thank you, Geralt.” Jaskier slides back around to Geralt’s front, beaming at him. Geralt’s stomach does an odd flip. It took weeks for Jaskier to smile at him again. “Always my knight in, ah, not so shining armor, eh? I’m going to go warm up in front of the fire.”

He pats Geralt’s cheek, and it must be Geralt’s imagination but it feels like the touch lingers (Jaskier’s touches always linger, it’s just Jaskier’s way, it doesn’t _mean—_ ) and then the bard is slipping back inside.

Vesemir’s eyebrow is raised so high up it looks like his face froze that way. “Looks like you did a spectacular job of that.”

“Fuck off.”

Vesemir just shakes his head. “Geralt. There are few certain things in this world. But one of them is… Stay close to the ones who feel like sunlight.”

That night, when Ciri requests a ballad, something soft, and Jaskier obliges her, Geralt lets himself look. Lets himself take in the way Jaskier’s fingers curl over the strings, the curve of his face in the fire, the way the light gets caught in his hair.

And when Jaskier glances up, and catches him looking… Geralt holds his gaze.

And Jaskier smiles.


End file.
